2012 In Review

Last year, I blogged about five of my goals for 2012, and I’m happy to report that I successfully achieved at least part of three of them. I did a terrible job of routinely making meal plans and sticking to them. I need to find a better system. Or not try to work around two people with crazy, often unpredictable schedules. And I didn’t make it down to my goal weight and stay there, in part due to goal number one: Train for and complete a marathon.

I finished Flying Pig Marathon in May, Southern Tennessee Plunge and Marine Corps Marathons in October, and Rocket City Marathon in December. Four marathons in 2012. Crazy town. Training for Flying Pig was tough since I had to work around my on-call weekends, and I probably did not consistently run at a high enough mileage to do that well there, compounded by the very warm weather and my stomach issues. However, it did set me up to lower my times in each successive marathon. I also ran my best friend’s first half marathon with her in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and we had a great time. Joe also completed two half marathons – one at Flying Pig and one at Southern Tennessee Plunge. We’re hoping to do more running together this year.

Goal #2: Do more leisure reading

In my mind, my goal was to read 20 books this year, which I keep track of on Goodreads. By the end of December, I had completed 33 books. Some of my favorites from this year: Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Jana Riess’ Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor; Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl; Lauren Winner’s Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis; Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones; and Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run.

Goal #3: Work on our house

We didn’t end up doing any major renovations or anything, but we finally tackled some of the closets and cabinets that had gotten out of control. I’ve tried to cull things from my closet that I don’t wear anymore. All of those running shoes can really add up!

Not on the goal list:

I was ordained as an Episcopal priest in April! It was a great weekend full of friends and family and celebration.

I finished my CPE residency at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. I was sad to leave my stint as a chaplain there since it’s such a wonderful place. I learned so much about myself and my ministry and who and where God is calling me to be between August 2011 and August 2012, and I am immensely thankful for that experience.

Joe and I traveled to Portland and the Willamette Valley in April and Hawaii in November, not to mention the trips to Washington D.C., Fort Wayne, Huntsville, Cincinnati, and Fort Myers. A big travel year!

This beautiful big boy joined our family in March. I wasn’t sure how our other cats would do, but now I can’t imagine our house without Stitch.

And I was appointed as priest-in-charge of Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Lebanon, TN. It’s scary and wonderful, and I love the congregation. I couldn’t be in a better place.

Those are definitely the highlights. It’s also been a rough and tough year in a lot of ways. Joe was out of the country for an entire month and then started a very demanding fellowship in July. There have been some growing pains in our marriage as we’ve worked out together where our lives are right now, but it hasn’t been easy.

Here’s hoping 2013 has fewer major life changes!

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin is normally more of a fall thing, but we had a warmer December and I had some cans of pumpkin in the cabinet that I never ended up using during prime pumpkin season. Abby posted that she had made this recipe from Make it Naked, which put it on my radar as something quick and easy for a weeknight meal. In between fun social gatherings that always centered around food, I was glad to have a home cooked, lighter meal to break up the heavy restaurant food. When I gave Joe the choice of cheesy beer bread or cornbread as an accompaniment, he quickly picked the beer bread. It took considerably longer for the beer bread to bake than did the soup.

I used Penzey’s hot curry powder (my favorite) to up the heat, so ours had quite a kick, though you can adjust the cayenne based on how spicy you like it. The Greek yogurt also has a cooling effect.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup
source: Make it Naked
Serves 4 as a main course

Ingredients

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
15 ounces pumpkin puree
6 ounces light coconut milk
1/2 cup Greek yogurt, for garnish (optional)
Fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Preparation

1. In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent. Stirring occasionally as not to burn the garlic. Stir in the spices. Cook for at least one minute letting the spices get aromatic.
2. Add the pumpkin. Whisk in the broth. Bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes. Add the coconut milk and stir.
4. Remove from heat. Using an immersion blender, puree until smooth. Garnish each serving with a dollop of yogurt and chopped herbs. Add salt and/or pepper to taste.

Rocket City Marathon

In the spirit of the new year, I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, particularly if I want to get everything in shipshape before I leave for Kenya in less than a week (!!!). So, chronologically, let’s go back to the beginning of December. December 8th to be specific.

Having been talked into running the Southern Tennessee Plunge Marathon in early October as a “training run” by my mother and finishing Marine Corps Marathon in late October, I only needed one other marathon within 90 days of the first one to qualify as a Marathon Maniac. The only catch was that it needed to be on a Saturday (since I work Sunday mornings) and within easy driving distance. My mom, the enabler, proposed Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, Alabama. After Southern TN went so well, I eventually signed up, though after MCM, I barely ran for about 2 weeks due to recovery and vacation. Even so, my only goal for Rocket City was to finish and qualify for Marathon Maniacs. A particularly good 16 mile training run the Monday after Thanksgiving left me feeling confident.

The morning dawned on the warmer (55-ish degrees) and humid side for December, but at least it was cloudy, keeping the sun from heating us up too much. I hadn’t slept particularly well or eaten particularly well the day before, so I was nervous. Rocket City is on the smaller side (~1500 registered), and everyone looked skinny and fast milling around the lobby of the Holiday Inn. It didn’t help to catch snippets of chatter about prospective Boston qualifying times. I was merely hoping to finish around 5 hours.

 

My parents drove down to cheer me on, and I was surprised to see them around mile 5. I had just started to feel okay after my normal warm-up period. Seeing them gave me a big lift, and the next few miles seemed to fly by as I found some people to run and talk with. Around mile 10 and 11, I realized that the 4:40 pace group was just ahead of me at a water stop. That was much faster than I wanted to be going considering I didn’t want to totally blow up. My mom started running with me at mile 13, and we found ourselves alongside one of the 4:40 pacers. But after clocking a rather fast mile, I made myself slow down, take a short bathroom stop, and we lost them again.

It started to get uncomfortably warm with the breeze now at our backs. I found myself wishing that I was carrying my own water, but the miles kept ticking off. Once we hit 20, I realized I was within striking distance of a PR. So my goal changed from a) just finishing to b) PR and possibly c) sub-4:40. A lot of people were walking, and I took a few short walking breaks, mostly stretching out walking through aid stations. Mom was pushing me, and at one point, I told her that I hated her. Compared to how the people around me looked, I was doing pretty well. Once we hit one mile to the finish line, I took one last walk break and sped up on the downhill to the end. Official time: 4:41:29, a PR by over 2 minutes. They gave me my medal and a hat and a space blanket as I staggered around.

I would highly recommend Rocket City. For me, it was an ideal size – not too big and not too small. There was a lot of community support, from people gathering at playgrounds to neighbors standing out in their yards and cheering. The food at the end of the race was amazing – Moon Pies, ice cream sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly on freshly baked bread and bagels, soup (which would’ve been nice if it had been seasonable weather), and fruit. It’s not the most scenic course, mostly weaving through neighborhoods with one stretch along a bigger road. One of the reasons it’s popular in this area is it’s relatively flat elevation profile, though there is still some roll to the course. The medal, hat, and shirt were high quality, and the logistics (parking, bathrooms, packet pick-up) were easy due to the smaller size.

And now I’m Marathon Maniac #6302!

In the Thick of Things

Last Monday, as I drove to the hospital to turn in my pager and badge now that my very last on-call evening and holiday shifts were complete, I received a phone call from a parishioner. Her husband, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 10 years ago, was dying. In the parking lot of a brewery, waiting to go in for our December Nashville Girls’ Pint Out meeting, I ran over things with the senior warden, trying to figure out if there was anything I could do. Then leaving, a friend shared the exciting news of an impending engagement. The parishioner’s husband died late that night.

Tuesday was our Fresh Start meeting of clergy in new calls and a site of fruitful and helpful conversation and fellowship. Wednesday was a flurry of funeral planning and church work before our budget review at the vestry meeting. The good news: highest pledges that the church has seen in years. Thursday was breakfast with my Divinity School girlfriends and a diocesan clergywomen lunch.

And then Friday. I was thankful that the funeral had kept me from writing my Sunday sermon because it would’ve had to be torn up and thrown away to account for the tragic deaths of 26 people, 20 of them schoolchildren. I cried, not only for those children, but for all the children and their families I carry with me from my time as a chaplain resident. I cried for the patients my husband is taking care in the trauma ICU this month and our sad, broken world. It felt wrong to get dressed up to head out to two holiday parties, but it was also good to be around laughter and joy.

Saturday, I officiated my very first funeral and was deeply humbled by the experience and deeply thankful for the Book of Common Prayer. To celebrate resurrection in the face of death, to have more hope than the world thinks is reasonable, is a challenge, particularly in Advent, particularly staring at the large bulk of the casket covered with the shiny white pall. And then that hope was made manifest in Italian food and wine with wonderful former classmates of mine - talk of dreams and red lipstick and grieving and celebration.

That night I dreamed of good and evil, action for life coupled with action for death, all entwined together. I dreamed of wholeness and completion, my ministry standing in the middle of celebration and mourning, holding the two in tension, like we do in the burial liturgy. Life is complicated. Life is both/and. Life is gray and magenta and green, not just black and white. We are saints and sinners, gloriously and utterly human.

The liturgy on the second Sunday of Advent was a mess. Nothing really happened like I wanted it to. The lighting of the Advent wreath was bumpy and awkward, and the acolyte waited too long to start processing at the end of the service. Afterward, someone came up and said, “Thank you for such a beautiful service.” I nearly laughed until I saw that she was serious. Thanks be to God for beauty in the breakdown, for light in the darkness, for hope in the midst of grief.

Washington DC

Our trip to DC was a little strange due to Superstorm Sandy. Fortunately, the storm held off through the marathon, but that night, the weather started to deteriorate. I was hoping to spend time with some friends who were also in town for the marathon, but they decided to head back up the coast. After soaking my aching legs in a long hot bath, I was ready for some food and drink, and we scored a last minute reservation at Jaleo. And I wore my medal because I earned that thing.

 

Joe enjoyed some sangria, and I had a few glasses of a Grenacha while we tried to re-book our cancelled flights from our phones. Ever since our honeymoon, Joe has been in search of paella that can live up to the honeymoon paella, and this seemed as good of a place as any. First though, we started with a few tapas. The housemade chorizo with olive oil mashed potatoes was particularly remarkable, and our waiter talked us into the liquid olives – my first experience with molecular gastronomy.

The paella was also incredible but not as photogenic, and we ended up with a lot of food. I heard the couple next to us make a snide remark about the pictures I was taking, but I didn’t care. After running 26.2 miles, I couldn’t exactly say no to dessert either.

Everything that we had was so inventive and beautifully presented. On our way out the door, we stopped to chat with another woman who was wearing her medal, and we heard the hostess calling people with reservations for the next day to cancel them. It was raining pretty hard on our walk back to the hotel, so we stopped off for some Goose Island Matilda on draft.

The next day we were rained in. Everything was closed, the Metro was shut down, and we had to resort to hotel food. While it was a bummer that we were kind of stuck, I was very thankful for the hotel staff. We had a reservation for Rasika Monday night, but it was cancelled. Fortunately, I was able to make another reservation for the next night.

Tuesday was still kind of rainy and icky, though there didn’t appear to be any serious damage near us, and all of the Smithsonian museums were still closed. We found a diner that was open and figured out that the International Spy Museum was the only museum in town open, which was fine by me because I love espionage. While we were walking around, I went to visit Scully and Mulder.

The spy museum was really fun and not somewhere that would’ve been our first choice normally. We walked around the National Mall and visited our buddy Abe.

The weird part about running Marine Corps Marathon is that I was totally oblivious to the landmarks we were near, in part because I was trying to not run into everyone around me and partially due to my glycogen-depleted brain. So it was nice to see everything when I wasn’t surrounded by people. For example, I had NO idea that the Capitol building was behind me in this picture.

Anyway, we walked up through Foggy Bottom and met my friend for a few drinks before heading to Rasika, where we decided to go big or go home: 6-course Chef’s Tasting Menu with wine pairings. It was really dark, so I didn’t get many pictures, but the black cod, palak chaat, and Konkani scallops were amazing. It was the most incredible Indian food I’ve ever had. We were SO full walking back to our hotel. I couldn’t even finish my dessert sampler.

Hopefully, the next time we go back to Washington, there won’t be a Superstorm since I didn’t get to see a quarter of what I wanted to, though we still had a good time.